One major issue that has dogged the electric vehicle is the complexity of any answer to the simple question, Are EVs better for the environment than gasoline-powered cars? Many instinctively believe the answer is no, because the cars get their power from the electrical grid — which is, in turn, driven chiefly by coal and natural gas. While that instinct may have been valid in decades past, it no longer is.

Tesla Motors manufactures electric cars. There's just one small item missing—charging stations. You can travel anywhere in the US and never be further than a tank of gas from the next gas station. Tesla wants the same for electric cars, and they can't afford to wait for someone else to make it happen. So, they're building their own charging network.

Toyota was the latest to step onboard the self-driving car hype machine this week when they announced they would offer a car with “automated driving technologies” by the mid-2010s. In recent months, several carmakers—Tesla, Nissan, BMW—have published forecasts of robot cars inside the next decade.

Elon Musk and his companies have been a PR treasure trove of late. SpaceX continues to make strides in reusable rocket tech with its Grasshopper rocket. Musk showed off an Iron Man 3D design interface his engineers are building. Then of course, there’s his hypothethical 700+ mph Hyperloop from SF to LA. And now, he’s pushing the envelope again. This time it’s self driving cars—a hot topic any way you slice it. Big automakers are stumbling over each other to forecast and commit to bold timelines. First, it was BMW's prediction we’d have partially autonomous cars by 2020 and the fully automated variety by 2025. More recently, Nissan upped the ante with their prediction of fully self-driving autos by 2020.

It’s been said Iron Man’s Tony Stark (the movie version) was modeled after Elon Musk. Apparently, the admiration's mutual. Musk is now modeling his space exploration firm, SpaceX, after Iron Man. Or Minority Report. Or name the sci-fi film or show with gesture-based 3D computer systems. (There are more.)

Electric vehicles still have limited range, expensive batteries, and few charging stations. While mainstream manufacturers seek to improve battery tech, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has a different idea. Who needs big batteries and stations when the road itself can charge vehicles? In July, two new buses began public service in the South Korean city, Gumi. The buses, or online electric vehicles (OLEVs), travel a road like a wireless cellphone charging mat—only, this particular mat is 7.5 miles long and cost $4 million to build.

To be a multi-planetary species, Musk believes we have to develop fully reusable rockets. If every rocket launched 1,000 times, instead of just once, capital costs would plummet from $50 million to $50,000 per launch (not counting operational expenses) and could drive per pound launch costs down 100-fold.

Elon Musk has long been hinting about a high-speed form of transportation enigmatically named the Hyperloop. Earlier this summer, he promised to reveal his Hyperloop plans in August. After a round of media hype and an all-nighter, Musk recently posted the 57-page Hyperloop Alpha plan online.

Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX, the entrepreneur who wants to colonize Mars with a vertically landing, reusable rocket—that guy—recently announced he’s been busy thinking about a pneumatic tube for people called the Hyperloop. In a recent post on Twitter, Musk said he’ll publish the “Hyperloop alpha design by Aug 12."

The era of commercial spaceflight has begun.
Early Friday morning SpaceX, a private company with less than 2,000 employees and and average age of 30, entered a domain that had until now been – literally...